Michinoku Pro

Michinoku Pro Wrestling (みちのくプロレス) also known as North Eastern Pro Wrestling.

Michinonoku Pro-Wrestling, or Michinoku Pro or MichiPro for short, was founed in 1992 by The Great Sasuke as a community-based promotion for the greater Tohoku, North Eastern, region of Japan. The promotion is primarily focused on the lucha libre style of wrestling with many of their wrestlers dawning masks and special motifs as they compete in the ring.

Founded on October 1, 1992, MichiPro established themselves out in Morioka City, Iwate Prefecture, Japan. Their first ever pre-show was held on November 27, 1992 in Takizawa City. Though due to disputes with the then UWF, Universal Wrestling Federation, the promotion would be put on the back-burner for the next several months. Due to the dispute Gran Hamada would end up joining MichiPro and their first ever show was held on Match 16, 1993 in Yahaba, Iwate. The Great Sasuke as well as Super Delfin would become regularly known in Japan through their work in New Japan Pro-Wrestling in the early and mid-90’s and certainly helped boaster the identity of the promotion.

The biggest break for the promotion came the formation of KAIENTAI★DX (海援隊★DX) in 1996 and would see Dick Togo, MEN’S Teioh, TAKA Michinoku, Shoichi Funaki, Hanzo Nakajima as young protagonists looking to make a break in business. This groupd would compete against The Great Sasuke and Super Delfin and would lead to MichiPro becoming very popular in venues evening maxing out their capacities to seat people. This would only last for a years time as TAKA and the rest of KAIENTA would move on to the USA and compete. By 1998 the promotion would go on a temporary hiatus after Sasuke suffered a knee injury that would require surgery. Delfin would take charge of the promotion for the time being, but on January 17, 1999 he announced that he would be withdrawing the promotion and many of the wrestlers and backstage personal would be joining him. This was in part due to differences due to the differences in regards to the direction of the promotion. Delfin was joined by Gran Naniwa, Masato Yakushiji, Naohiro Hoshikawa, Masaru Seno, then trainee Hayato Kigawa (who later became Super Dolphin, Kajin Habu Otoko, HUB), and referee Yukinori Matsui. Delfin would then form Osaka Pro-Wrestling.

Over the next several years MichiPro would be left a bit wounded with the lose of talent, but they managed to make due working with many freelance wrestlers. TAKA Michinoku and Dick Togo would return after their stint in the USA and would compete from time to time as well. Togo would then become a main enemy of the promotion and formed his own group to take on MichiPro. In 2003, Sasuke would run for public office and this would see Jinsei Shinzaki take over as the president of the promotion. The 10th year anniversary of the promotion was held on November 2, 20003 at the Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo, Japan. The main event seeing Sasuke vs. Delfin, with Delfin claiming the victory and Sasuke leaving in silence.

In July of 2004 the promotion would undergo a major revival in a way as Ultimo Dragon disbanded his then Toryumon X promotion and sent his talent to join the promotion. This would be dubbed “Shinsei Michinoku Pro-Wrestling” as many new faces would come into the promotion that year. Bear Fukuda (then Mango Fukuda), Ken45 (Pineapple Hanai), Murcielago (Now Shadow Phoenix), and Manabu Murakami (now Manji Maru) would be the firsts to join the promotion. Then in October Taro Nohashi, Dynamite Tohoku, Shu Sato and Kei Sato (now Brahman Brothers) joined the promotion. Then at the end of that year SUGI, Rasse, Kagetora, and Manabu Murakami would make their debuts.